Aussies spy on government staff

The Australian Tax Office is going to spy on its staff because it is worried that they are typing too fast. The taxman is advertising for software to reduce the number of employees that suffered from musculoskeletal disorders or repetitive strain injuries.

It wants to save money on its insurance bill and it has worked out that the best way to do this is install keyloggers on every computer. The Keyloggers would be designed to help employees change their computing behaviour and manage their own safety “within their screen-based environment”. The software should tell the managers of keyboard activity and breaks, user group progress, break compliance, computer usage and work activity patterns to identify high risk users or user groups .

Users are expected to volunteer to be snooped on and no one will be forced into the programme against their will. There is no indication if the tax man will use the info for other data gathering work.